We haven’t really heard much news about a possible new tablet from Blackberry ever since the last official talk about a new Blackberry tablet died out early in 2014. But when the CEO of one year in Blackberry, John Chen made an appearance at MIT Enterprise Forum Hong Kong, he confirmed that Blackberry is in fact working on a new device with a tablet form factor, and that it may see the light of day in 2015.
The one tablet they have made to date is the Blackberry Playbook, a well equipped tablet for its time. In fact the 3MP front camera and 5MP rear camera from 2011 surpasses what most new tablets comes with today. Approximately 3.000.000 Playbook units have been sold.
The challenge that John Chen thinks Blackberry faces with a new tablet is how to come up with a useful from factor. To stay true to Blackberry, it is likely to have a built in keyboard, so that could make it a slider. But with tablets now becoming 6 to 7 mm thick, nobody wants a thick tablet any longer, so Blackberry needs to work around that.
Blackberry Passport with 1:1 aspect ratio
In addition to that, it seems Blackberry also wants to be unconventional with the display size and aspect ratio, in the same kind of way they have been with the Blackberry Passport
New aspect ratios is something tablet manufacturers are aware of. A few tablet brands have shifted from 8-inch displays this year to 7.85-inch displays on their new generation tablets, merely in order to change the aspect ratio to 4:3, thus increasing the amount of content available horizontally when a tablet is held in portrait mode.
Would you want a tablet with something akin to a 1:1 aspect ratio?
– Tom Bowen
